Sex Offender Registration Case Dismissed

Judge says sex offender registration is ‘punishment and shaming similar to the Scarlett Letter’ A district court judge on Tuesday dismissed a case against a Belleville man alleging he violated conditions of the Kansas Offenders Registration Act. District Court Judge Kim Cudney granted a motion by Darrick Klima, Belleville, to dismiss charges alleging he used the internet in violation of conditions of the KORA. Klima was convicted of aggravated indecent solicitation of a child and promoting obscenities to minors in 2001. At that time he was ordered to register on the KORA for 10 years. That registration expired in May of 2011. However, that same year the Legislature extended the registration period from 10 years to lifetime.

Cudney ruled that the the registration should not have been applied retroactively to Klima. “To impose the law retroactively appears punitive,” she said. She compared it to someone who had
completed a jail sentence. “If we send someone to prison for 36 months, they serve their sentence, and then while on parole the law changed and we said ‘now you have to go back to prison for another year’, most people would find that offensive.” Another case challenging the Constitutionality of the KORA is before the Kansas Supreme Court.